Fifty Fifty

PROMETHEAN EDITIONS
GARETH FARR
Fifty Fifty
Solo Percussion

Gareth Farr
Fifty Fifty
Bongos
PROMETHEAN EDITIONS
WELLINGTON

Fifty Fifty (PE135), for Bongos by Gareth Farr (2014) dedicated to
Dame Evelyn Glennie.
© Promethean Editions 2014
First edition © 2016 Promethean Editions Limited
Series Editor: Ross Hendy
Editor: Brad Jenkins
ISBN: 978-1-877564-35-2 (print)
ISBN: 978-1-77660-135-6 (ebook)
ISMN: 979-0-67452-235-9
Promethean Editions Limited
PO Box 10-143
Wellington
NEW ZEALAND
http://www.promethean-editions.com
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by
any means without permission in writing from the Publisher.
PE135 – ii

Gareth Farr (1968)
Gareth Farr was born in Wellington, New Zealand. He began his studies in composition and
percussion performance at the University of Auckland. The experience of hearing a visiting
gamelan orchestra prompted his return to Wellington to attend Victoria University, where the
characteristic rhythms and textures of the Indonesian gamelan rapidly became hallmarks of
his own composition. Farr continued with postgraduate study in composition and percussion
at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, NY, where his teachers included Samuel Adler
and Christopher Rouse.
The inclusion of his works in four events at the 1996 New Zealand International Festival of
the Arts inaugurated his career as a dedicated freelance composer. Since then, Farr’s music
has been heard at, or especially commissioned for, high-profile events including the 50th
anniversary of the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra (From the Depths Sound the Great Sea
Gongs), the opening of the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa (Te Papa), and the
2000 Olympic Games in Sydney (Hikoi, a concerto for percussionist Evelyn Glennie and the
NZSO). In 2003, a commission by the Auckland Festival resulted in Stone and Ice, composed
for the combined forces of the NZSO and the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. In 2006
Farr was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for his services to music and
entertainment. In the same year, the Royal New Zealand Ballet toured the country with their
brand new work The Wedding, featuring a score by Gareth Farr. At ninety minutes, it was
among the ballet company’s most ambitious projects, and combined Farr’s talents with those
of prominent New Zealand novelist and librettist Witi Ihimaera.
Farr’s music was integral to Maui – One Man Against the Gods, a stage show four years in the
making. First premiered in 2003, it featured aerial theatre, Maori kapa haka, contemporary
dance and song, with Farr’s stirring music, and toured a number of centres in New Zealand.
In more recent years, Farr has developed a fruitful collaboration with director and librettist
Paul Jenden, producing four comedy musicals. In 2007 Farr was appointed as Composer-
PE135 – iii

in-Residence for the Auckland Philharmonia Orchestra. The residency culminated in 2008
with the premiere of Ex Stasis, a symphonic song cycle for four soloists. In 2008, Farr also
celebrated the world premiere of his work Terra Incognita, for bass solo, choir and orchestra,
performed by Paul Whelan and the Orpheus Choir with the New Zealand Symphony
Orchestra. Farr’s artistic excellence was acknowledged when he received the Arts Foundation
of New Zealand’s Arts Laureate Award 2010, which aims to celebrate significant artistic
achievement as well as nurture future creative endeavours.
In March of 2014 Farr’s Concerto for Piano and Orchestra received its world premiere from
soloist Tony Lee and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Pietari Inkenen.
Its UK premiere followed one year later, with Lee backed by the BBC Philharmonic, with
conductor Tecwyn Evans. The BBC Philharmonic included Farr’s work alongside Douglas
Lilburn’s Symphony No.2 as a programme to mark the 100th anniversary of the ANZAC
troops’ battle at Gallipoli during World War I. The concerto received critical acclaim,
described by the Dominion Post’s John Button as containing “marvellously free piano
writing surrounded by orchestral sounds that conjure up memories of Prokofiev ballets,
Ravel’s L’Enfant et les Sortileges and even the Bartok First Piano Concerto…the ear was tickled
bar after bar. I have no doubt that this marvellously inventive piano concerto is bound to
develop an international life all its own.”
Farr’s music is particularly influenced by his extensive study of percussion, both Western
and non-Western. Rhythmic elements of his compositions can be linked to the complex and
exciting rhythms of Rarotongan log drum ensembles, Balinese gamelan and other percussion
music of the Pacific Rim.
Latest information about the composer may be found at www.garethfarr.com.
PE135 – iv

Fifty Fifty (2014)
Brief yet virtuosic, Farr packs a range of playing techniques into Fifty Fifty, with the player
initially having to alternate between striking with a finger and mini maraca in the left
hand, all the while sustaining a roll with the right. The simmering suspense of the opening
bars breaks out into a passage of rapid-fire and odd-metered drumstick work peppered
with propulsive accents and nested tuplets. A relatively spacious middle section follows,
its subverted, syncopated shuffle accentuated by the returning mini maraca. The work
then pushes toward its conclusion with a return to the drumstick-driven material, which
now requires the player to negotiate controlled dynamic swells and dips en route to its
fortississimo climax at bar 50.
The composer writes:
Along with 49 other composers around the world, I was asked by Dame Evelyn Glennie
to write a piece for her 50th birthday in 2015. The concept was fascinating – 50 successful
living composers each write a 50-bar piece for a solo percussion instrument.
Evelyn’s decision to make the piece for one instrument only was partially to make the
project creatively challenging and logistically practical, but also as a good opportunity
to diversify the repertoire outside of multi-instrument setups. I approached the project
with immediate glee simply because of the mathematical part of the concept, but then of
course got very excited with thinking up ways to make solo bongos (the instrument she
chose for me) deliver a satisfying piece of music for the audience – with contrast, drama,
subtlety, and excitement.
I used as many playing techniques as I could think of to achieve the contrast element
of the piece – playing with fingers, drumsticks, mini maracas as drumsticks, and
combinations with each hand playing a different technique. The drama, subtlety and
excitement come from the concept and form of the piece – it starts pianissimo and
rhythmically free and builds up to a fortississimo and rhythmically complex climax.
PE135 – v

The piece was originally going to be called Leth-Cheud – Rima Tekau, meaning “Fifty Fifty”
in Scots Gaelic and NZ Māori, but I realised that it would end up being the one piece of
mine that no-one ever pronounces correctly, so I settled for Fifty Fifty, which is a nod to
the name of the whole project – 50 for 50.
Dame Evelyn Glennie gave the premiere performance of Fifty Fifty at the Opera House in
Naples, Italy on 16 May 2015.
PE135 – vi

»
Fifty Fifty DEDICATED TO EVELYN GLENNIE
Gareth Farr 
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Fifty Fifty © 2014 Promethean Editions Limited
This edition © 2016 Promethean Editions Limited PE135 – 2
ISMN: 979-0-67452-235-9
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PE135 – 3